Reports, proud muckraking, photos, videos and musings from the veteran LGBT and AIDS human rights advocate Michael Petrelis. Based in San Francisco since 1995.
Contact: MPetrelis_at_AOL_dot_com.
Vote Petrelis for BART Board District 9 in November!

Monday, May 26, 2014

Castro's Blush Bar Bans Google Glass

[UPDATE: Scroll down for the note from Blush.]

One thing that surprised me about see this sign was the fact that there were only two customers enjoying some wine when I walked past a wine bar on Saturday afternoon in my gayborhood.

Due to a capital improvement project widening the sidewalks of the Castro business district, with no parking on Castro and 18th Streets, plenty of dust and dirt blowing in the wind, and the sidewalks narrowed to the point two people can barely pass each other without touching, even on a sunny Saturday the area was extremely less populated than usual.

Business owners have been complaining about a serious reduction of customers and revenue, so why would the Blush Wine Bar on Castro ban Google Glass wearers from the joint if they have money to spend? Like I said, only two folks were at this bar late on Saturday afternoon and I imagine the owner could use a few more patrons to help her or him pay the rent.

What if patrons wearing the tech toys don't want to turn them off? They take their business elsewhere. I emailed Blush but haven't heard back from them, so I have no response to include in this post. If anyone knows why this bar has banned Google Glass wearers, please share the info with me.

IMHO, there's too much banning of things in San Francisco such as gay bathhouses, nudity on the streets, sleeping in public parks, LGBT community access to the rainbow flag pole on public property at Harvey Milk Plaza and backroom bars.

How about practicing education and tolerance instead of so much banning?

UPDATE: Here's the message from Bree Theriault, the general manager of Blush, I received this morning. Sorry I forgot about this right of businesses:

We reserve the right to refuse service and it is our choice to not
subject our staff or customers to being filmed without their knowledge.